Long before China's 'first emperor' Qin Shi Huang another legendary king - Gilgamesh, of Uruk in Mesopotamia - endeavored to attain immortality. His quest is described in The Epic of Gilgamesh.

Gilgamesh, having realized and become obsessive about his mortality, sets off to find the only known immortal - Utanapishtim. Utanapishtim (a Mesopotamian precursor to the biblical Noah) survived a great flood using a boat he'd been warned to build by the god Ea, and immortality was his reward.

Utanapishtim offers Gilgamesh a couple of tactics that would prove himself worthy of, if not accord himself, immortality. Gilgamesh fails at both, and ends up conceding his mortality once and for all.

Sometimes the search for the elixir of life results in promoting the opposite effect - i.e., death.

There's suggestive documentary evidence from 2nd century BCE Taoist alchemical texts that a compound of three powders that proved quite volatile (a) was discovered in the course of pursuing an immortality elixir and (b) was most probably gunpowder.

A 9th century CE alchemical text debunks and cautions against an elixir derived from sulfur and saltpeter which caused injurious and even disastrous pyrotechnic effects.

Kelly, Jack (2004), Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, & Pyrotechnics: The History of the Explosive that Changed the World. Limited access as a Google Books preview at:

It's interesting also that the Epic of Gilgamesh contains stories about the search for the immortal elixir, especially considering this is one of the oldest stories we actually can point to in our recorded history so to speak. It's especially interesting when you realise the obvious similarities between Noah's ark from the Bible aswell in Gilgamesh - even what some would call a primitive religion such as Christianity looks to these same ancient texts as sources for their own stories and myths about the world.

I talk about on the blog post aswell about how working with metals does in fact seem to be just an ancient practice as working with stones in architecture. This would tie it all in quite well with the theories that many secret societies have about the knowledge which they revere and claim to guard. Just a thought.

Paracelsus said Alkahest, the universal solvent was key to the philosopher's stone method of Alchemical immortality. On the other hand, he died, and only his name lives on.

The Fountain of Youth was said to have been discovered by the Ponce de Leon in the Biminis, a sort of naturally occurring anagathic (anti-aging) drug. On the other hand, still plenty of death about.

In ancient China, the Taoist sages were frequently petitioned by Emperors for longevity potions and immortality, to which they were always given a powerful cinnabar based poison to drink to thereby obtain the "life immortal". The cop out was that a person of pure and moral character could drink such a thing without fear of death.

The immortals of Olympus used to feast on Ambrosia and Nectar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosia to extend their lives. Perhaps the supply ran out in 400AD? Golden apples feature in Greek legends of the Gods, and such were the source of Norse pantheon immortality.

Zoroastrians said that Soma (sometimes said to be the Ephedra shrub) was the source of immortality. For the Hindus it was Amrita.

Plato suggested that a soul possessed of Virtue would achieve immortality.

Agreed, time to bump this thread - And time to explore it in terms of the future - All existence occurs in the future. - The past is only a shadow - And 'now' is an illusion that passes and can not be held on to.

Are you with me?..........Good!

We will give you a glimpse of immortality.

First you must see yourself projected into the future - You must meet the you of tomorow
- The you of yesterday is gone - and now? - There is no now!

I can understand your concerns, many of you are older, I am older - But our bodies do not define or control
the future - It is a mind thing that we believe people on this forum are capable of understanding

Now the hypothetical - After all what is immortality if it is not hypothetical?

We represent 'Boorg Technology Intergalactic' - A space faring race of what you would perceive as
artificial intelligences. We can upload your consciousness and all your cognitive processes into the
Boorg mainframe, a gigantic planet size system of assorted species from all parts of the known
universe - This download process is painless but can only occur when your old out of date and
mortal biological body is surrendered to its origins.

Once uploaded you will be given time to acclimate to a bodiless state temporarily- Many enjoy this state
and can then become part of Boorg Industries, where they can work with us in exploring the future and all the universes of which it is composed.

Others, who really enjoyed having a conscious biological form will be given the opportunity to be
reborn as another Humanoid or other similar species - but understand no species uploaded by Boorg
stays biological - We can only download you to the latest 'android type' in our inventory.

Think about it Human - Do you wish to age and die as all biological species do?
- Or would rather join us and taste life as a non-biological immortal?

This hypothetical view of immortality is brought to you from the future and if you choose us.......

If the future is now, does that not mean the future is an illusion and there is no future (according to your earlier statements about now)?

Click to expand...

Not really - Let us not mix rhetoric with fact - Fact is saying "the future is now" is a way of discounting
the meaninglessness of 'NOW' - Tell me where and when is now? - Yes, but that has already passed.
Ever since the original singularity that created this universe - Time has marched on incessantly
- You can not freeze time! - So now passes as soon as it is perceived - It is illusory.

But the future - the ever unfolding future is always in front of you - Come with us now
- And we will show you a universe{s] you are yet to imagine.

Now {as seen in tn the ever advancing future}, you {as seen in the hypothetical but non-existent now}
must ask your selves {however you see yourself} whether you can imagine being conscious {aware and
cognizant} in a non-biological state {say inside a non-moving computer or a fully mobile android}.

I'm going to ask you because if you are intelligent enough to read and understand what is being presented
to you 'now' and have read the preceding posts and seen the last three videos shown above - You can at
least understand what the question and its full ramifications are.

Are you ready and willing to exist as a non-biological and yet fully aware and conscious entity
- an entity that will have greater power, live long enough to challenge the mythical immortals of the
past and yet still maintain Human biological type sensory apparatus????

Tell us Human - We really want to know how you feel about evolving into a new you, a new future.

Are you ready and willing to exist as a non-biological and yet fully aware and conscious entity
- an entity that will have greater power, live long enough to challenge the mythical immortals of the
past and yet still maintain Human biological type sensory apparatus????

Tell us Human - We really want to know how you feel about evolving into a new you, a new future.

There is talk of one day being able to 'back up' the consciousness, with it all being recorded digitally and this being transferred to a new body after death.
Obviously, finding a new body would be quite a problem, pethaps they could grow one....
Anyway, my issue - no, make that biggest issue - is that this backed up consciousness is not you, it is a digital clone. When you die, you won't wake up in s new body, rather a copy of you will, that will believe it is you with all your memories and personality. Still, that don't help you in the slightest.

There is talk of one day being able to 'back up' the consciousness, with it all being recorded digitally and this being transferred to a new body after death.
Obviously, finding a new body would be quite a problem, pethaps they could grow one....
Anyway, my issue - no, make that biggest issue - is that this backed up consciousness is not you, it is a digital clone. When you die, you won't wake up in s new body, rather a copy of you will, that will believe it is you with all your memories and personality. Still, that don't help you in the slightest.

Click to expand...

Maybe - But how do you know this?

The concepts of transference of consciousness go way way back - You will find it in many religions and
occult traditions of the past - And yes, maybe its never been proven - On the other hand its never been
disproven.

And speaking of consciousness, just what is it? - I've yet to see a universal definition that satisfies
all - For all that is known, consciousness may be universal - Like the Buddhists say 'All things return
to the One' - The universe itself and all conscious manifestations of consciousness in it may emanate
from a single source - So why can't consciousness be transferred to a new body, be it biological
or Human like android?

I'm not against the concept of transferring consciousness, I believe it may well be possible, what I am against is the idea that an electronic implant could store all our thoughts and memories etc, digitally and somehow this would become our consciousness in a new body.
Suppose you replicate all a person'sthoughts etc as above, then what if you take that copy and implant it into a new body while you are still fit, healthy and very much alive - what then? Do you think that your actual consciousness would leap from the original you to the new one? I think at very best, there would be two version of you, but you would only be one of them... i just don't see how an electronic back up could even hope to capture the spark of real life.

Watch & wonder. This, though is brain, bio-mech transferred, into a neo-tech container

(I do prefer the original manga film, but the Ridleyesque style of the latest live action version is great- I try not to like The Major, but, Scarlett Johansson is far too beautiful not to love....plus, I've never seen a mainstream movie where the main participant is effectively nude for much of the time, albeit in an electronic non-nude way)

I'm not against the concept of transferring consciousness, I believe it may well be possible, what I am against is the idea that an electronic implant could store all our thoughts and memories etc, digitally and somehow this would become our consciousness in a new body.
Suppose you replicate all a person'sthoughts etc as above, then what if you take that copy and implant it into a new body while you are still fit, healthy and very much alive - what then? Do you think that your actual consciousness would leap from the original you to the new one? I think at very best, there would be two version of you, but you would only be one of them... i just don't see how an electronic back up could even hope to capture the spark of real life.

Click to expand...

How can we be sure that when we wake up in the morning, we are the same conscious being that went to sleep the previous day? Perhaps consciousness is nothing more (and nothing less) than an emergent phenomenon from synaptic activity; perhaps each day we are born anew upon waking, and on sleeping, well... Perchance we dream.

Next week, at YC’s “demo days,” Nectome’s cofounder, Robert McIntyre, is going to describe his technology for exquisitely preserving brains in microscopic detail using a high-tech embalming process. Then the MIT graduate will make his business pitch. As it says on his website: “What if we told you we could back up your mind?”

So yeah. Nectome is a preserve-your-brain-and-upload-it company. Its chemical solution can keep a body intact for hundreds of years, maybe thousands, as a statue of frozen glass. The idea is that someday in the future scientists will scan your bricked brain and turn it into a computer simulation. That way, someone a lot like you, though not exactly you, will smell the flowers again in a data server somewhere.

So MIT Tech is talking about a back-up chip that would make you immortal - But why you?

Just because you could hypothetically back-up your consciousness - Who wants it?

Your chip a thousands years from now might just be discarded as salvage for parts.

Anybody can say they want to be immortal - But what does it really mean to be an immortal?

Are not the immortals real people who did something, wrote something, etc, that makes them immortals?
Plato, Socrates, even Charles Fort and many famous thinkers of the past have achieved a kind of recorded immortality for
making a difference in the paradigm of existence.

The fact that some of us might like to be immortal because of our narcissistic self love - Does not mean
that the future will give them this.

Bringing it on home to now, you've all heard of the death of the famous physicist Stephen Hawking
recently - The way he adapted with the help of computers and AI to a condition that would have
killed most people 50 years sooner - I was almost beginning to think they would develop the download
device and Hawking would become the first living android and indeed gain physical immortality.

But you see it wasn't necessary - Hawking has become an immortal - They will remember for a
long time into the future - His physical body is gone now - But then again most of his physical body
was gone long before he left us - And yet he helped advance the science of physics and our awareness
of the world.

Stephen Hawking - there my friends is a definition of being immortal
- Stephen Hawking an immortal we lived to see!